1972: Nixon/Agnew v. Jackson/Sanford

[Maxwell]

How would this end up? How much better does this ticket do than McGovern/Shriver?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

GOP: Pres. Richard M. Nixon (R-CA)/VP Spiro Agnew (R-MD)  51% 483 EV  
DEM: Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-WA)/Fmr. Gov. Terry Sanford (D-NC)  35% 55 EV 
Independent: Fmr. Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN)/Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-CA) 12%
AIP: Rep. John G. Schmitz (R-CA)/Citizen Thomas J. Anderson (AIP-TN) 1.3%

[MATTROSE94]

GOP: Pres. Richard M. Nixon (R-CA)/VP Spiro Agnew (R-MD)  51% 483 EV  
DEM: Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-WA)/Fmr. Gov. Terry Sanford (D-NC)  35% 55 EV 
Independent: Fmr. Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN)/Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-CA) 12%
AIP: Rep. John G. Schmitz (R-CA)/Citizen Thomas J. Anderson (AIP-TN) 1.3%

Your map looks about right,although I might flip Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa to Jackson

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

GOP: Pres. Richard M. Nixon (R-CA)/VP Spiro Agnew (R-MD)  51% 483 EV  
DEM: Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-WA)/Fmr. Gov. Terry Sanford (D-NC)  35% 55 EV 
Independent: Fmr. Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN)/Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-CA) 12%
AIP: Rep. John G. Schmitz (R-CA)/Citizen Thomas J. Anderson (AIP-TN) 1.3%

Your map looks about right,although I might flip Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa to Jackson

You can really only make the case for MN & MI going to Jackson. In Nixon's two other races, where-in he had less than 51% if the vote, he won both WI & IA. With a sufficiently split Democratic base, Nixon can realistically take MN & MI as well.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

GOP: Pres. Richard M. Nixon (R-CA)/VP Spiro Agnew (R-MD)  51% 483 EV  
DEM: Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-WA)/Fmr. Gov. Terry Sanford (D-NC)  35% 55 EV 
Independent: Fmr. Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN)/Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-CA) 12%
AIP: Rep. John G. Schmitz (R-CA)/Citizen Thomas J. Anderson (AIP-TN) 1.3%

Your map looks about right,although I might flip Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa to Jackson

You can really only make the case for MN & MI going to Jackson. In Nixon's two other races, where-in he had less than 51% if the vote, he won both WI & IA. With a sufficiently split Democratic base, Nixon can realistically take MN & MI as well.

Yep. Nixon had pretty good approvals with a decent economy and some foreign policy successes, in spite of the Vietnam War, so I gave him a majority.  McCarthy in this takes a lot of votes from Midwest progressives, among others.

[Fuzzy Bear]

It is hard for me to predict how such a matchup would play out because Jackson's nomination would have been impossible to swallow for the anti-war liberals of the Democratic party of 1972.  Jackson was one of the most hawkish of Democrats in 1972; his position on Vietnam was down-the-line support for Nixon's policies.  (Jackson was one of a handful of Democrats outside the South in either house of Congress to support the continued bombing of Cambodia in 1973; indeed, at least 1/2 of the SOUTHERN Democrats at that time voted against the bombing of Cambodia.)

I believe that if Henry Jackson had been the 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee, he may well have carried a number of Southern States IF he had received George Wallace's endorsement.  If not, it's hard to say.  Jackson would have been an easier sell in the South than McGovern, but his pro-Nixon Vietnam positions would likely have prompted a left-liberal 3rd party challenge. 

The question of how such a ticket would fare in a 3 way race where the 3rd party candidate would likely have been Eugene McCarthy would largely depend on how the more nominal constituencies of the Democratic Party of 1972 would have viewed Jackson at that time.  The nation was far more unionized in 1972 than now, and unions held more sway in 1972 then now, and most of those voters would likely have supported Jackson.  The Democratic Party of 1972 was the party of what we would call "neocons" today, and Jackson was the candidate of that faction.  Big-city machines were more of a factor in 1972, and they would have been enthusiastic for Jackson.  There were many other moderate-to-conservative constituencies within the Democratic Party of 1972 that opposed the liberal reforms, seeing them as mechanisms to turn the Democrats into a minority party.  "(The reformers) reformed us out of a Presidency in 1968, and, now, they're going to reform us out of a party!" complained Rep. Wayne Hays (D-Ohio) in 1972.  He wasn't entirely wrong, and he was far from alone in holding this sentiment.

The key to this would be how blacks came down in this struggle.  If blacks in 1972 stuck with Henry Jackson, a liberal rift MAY have been averted.  Blacks had reason to fear further Nixon Supreme Court appointments,  and his law-and-order initiatives. But the anti-war liberals had been long allies of black reformers, and the likelihood would have been that there would have been an anti-war 3rd party which had the support of a coalition of minorities and peacenik doves.  It is likely that the Democrats would have taken a huge shellacking; indeed, some liberals may have viewed Nixon as the lesser of 2 evils on the war, given Jackson's hawkishness.  Either way, Democrats would have lost big in the Electoral College.